Paul and Carol Go to Guatemala

By Catherine Gigante-Brown

Set in 1993, Paul and Carol Go to Guatemala is part travelogue, part social commentary and part romance. The novel chronicles a couple's budding relationship as they explore a wild and wonderful third-world country in the final throes of a civil war. Through Carol's journal entries, it weaves the compelling story of two wayward traveler

• Language: English
• Publisher: Volossal Publishing
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985079609

Catherine Gigante-Brown

A lifelong Brooklynite, Catherine Gigante-Brown is a freelance writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her works have appeared in a variety of publications, including Time Out New York, Essence, Seventeen and The Italian Journal of Wine and Food. She co-wrote two biographies for Prometheus Books (Mistress Jacqueline's Whips & Kisses and Jerry Butler's Raw Talent). Her short stories appear in several fiction anthologies and her essay, "When I was Young," was included in Penguin Books' Vietnam Voices. A number of her screenplays have been produced by small, independent companies. Her essay "Autumn of 9/11" was awarded first prize in The Brooklyn Public Library's 2004 "My Brooklyn" contest. Her works, Weekender and Moving Pictures, were included in the Rosendale Theatre Collective's first annual Short Play Festival. Gigante-Brown she still lives in her native Brooklyn with her husband and son. Her first novel The El, was published in 2012, followed by Different Drummer in 2015. Her third novel, The Bells of Brooklyn, a sequel to The El, was published in May 2017. Next came Better than Sisters, a young adult/women's crossover in 2019. In 2020, Brooklyn Roses completed The El Trilogy. And in 2021, Gigante-Brown released Paul and Carol Go to Guatemala. She also contributed a poem to the collection Tiger Lovin' Blues.

Book preview

Immediately, I’m paralyzed with fear. I can’t stand, can’t move, can’t breathe. When I’m able to suck in a lungful of air, I scream, Paul! But he can’t hear me in the squall so I scream it again, even louder, Paul!

He turns and makes his way to me. I hope he can’t see the tears streaming down my face in the mist. But he does. You’re overreacting, Paul says as diplomatically as possible. But then a gust lifts his 200-pound frame and pushes him three feet away from me, toward Pacaya’s edge.

When I detect fear on Paul’s face I start to panic. We’re screwed, aren’t we? I sob. He doesn’t answer. Even our guides struggle to remain standing.

Paul clings to me. You’ve got to move, he shouts into the abyss. When I shield my face with the hood of my sweatshirt, I find that at least I can breathe. Breathing is good. Breathing is important. Don’t let go of me! Please don’t let go of me! I beg Paul. He doesn’t. With each step, I think, ‘We might make it. We just might make it.’ I keep repeating this to myself, a silent mantra, a prayer.

~

What the hell am I doing climbing an active volcano in Guatemala? Is this some sort of test? But who am I kidding? The only reason I’m here is because Paul is here.

But I’m getting a little bit ahead of the story...

Sunday, November 21, 1993

New York City/Guatemala City

I’ve never seen JFK Airport like this before. And I’ve been traveling for more than 25 years.

I’ve never packed for a trip like this before. All of my belongings are in one large, green backpack. I bought it at a store called Tents and Trails, which is nestled on Park Row in lower Manhattan. Tents and Trails is a cramped, ratty camping store a stone’s throw from the Twin Towers and is out of place among the skyscrapers. Just like I will be out of place in Central America.

Plus, I’ve never gone on a trip like this before: to Guatemala, a mysterious land I know little about. Jungles. Monkeys. Mayan ruins. Still in the pangs of a waning civil war. Don’t you know that Americans get kidnapped in Guatemala? my mother asked a few days ago, her voice sharp with fear.

"Didn’t you see Missing?" my father followed up with before I could respond to my mom, taking a deep drag on his Chesterfield.

"Missing happened in Chile," I told them patiently. But it didn’t make a difference. My folks believed what they wanted to believe.

Of my top 100 countries to visit, my father said. Guatemala would be 99th on that list. I would never go there.

But my boyfriend asked me to go to Guatemala with him, so here I am.

And on my own personal list of nevers, I have never dated a man like Paul before. He is both rough and smooth around the edges. A drinker, a thinker, and ruggedly handsome in a way that still steals the breath from my body. Since we’ve been dating, Paul has gotten me to do things I wouldn’t normally do, things far outside my comfort zone. Like hike from hut-to-hut in New Hampshire’s White Mountains (the highest peaks east of the Rockies) and ride the Cyclone roller coaster in Coney Island in our native Brooklyn.

Now, Paul has convinced me to come with him to Guatemala, a place as wild and unpredictable as he is.

Of course, I said ‘yes.’

Who wouldn’t?

~

It is dark, misty and cold at six o’clock this wintery morning. The car service driver seems annoyed that Paul and I are going somewhere—anywhere!—and that he himself isn’t. As the old Buick bolts into the rain-slick streets, the purple sedan is the only speck of color on the gray urban landscape.

When we arrive at JFK, the sun still hasn’t risen and the sky is still a bottomless indigo. Our flight to Guatemala City is scheduled to leave at seven. Fat chance. The check-in line extends beyond the Lacsa Airlines terminal door and floods onto the airport’s concrete sidewalk.

Paul scowls through half-closed eyes. Almost a year into our relationship, I am well aware that he isn’t a morning person. But he is crankier than usual standing out in the frigid, pre-dawn November air with a 40-pound pack pulling on his shoulders. Lacsa, he growls. Who ever heard of Lacsa Airlines?

It’s the national carrier of Costa Rica, I say, a bit too perkily. Paul grunts in response.

The line is composed mostly of women, children and babies. Paul has made it clear that he doesn’t like kids very much. But at least the babies are quiet, swaddled tightly in blankets. Quieter than the adults are.

In addition to the bodies, there are boxes. I’ve never seen so many people traveling with so many boxes. Most are shrink wrapped. There are Sony television sets, Schwinn bicycles, Fedders air conditioners and Black & Decker mini fridges. One carton is so warped and pitted that it’s disintegrating. Looks like it was stored on someone’s fire escape, Paul notes.

It probably was, I agree. Paul has a uniquely fresh, sarcastic way of looking at life that often makes me smile. How did I get by before him? I don’t know. What will I do when it ends? Because all things invariably end, right?

But I just can’t think of that now. Not when Paul and I are leaving for unchartered territory—both geographically and relationship-wise. Romances flounder on even the best of vacations. They buckle under the stress of lost reservations, missed trains and food poisoning. And most often, these are trips to gated, cushy, all-inclusive resorts in semi-civilized countries. Exactly what this trip is not.

Guatemala is raw and undiscovered and in the final throes of its 30-plus year revolution. Communication is sketchy there. Transportation is a challenge. Except for a couple of nights, Paul and I don’t have reservations anywhere. You see, he wants us to be spontaneous. Me, not so much. In the morning, I like to know where I’ll be laying my head that evening. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

But I force myself to be positive. I can’t put the kibosh on this trip before we even leave the tarmac. I’m trying to be hopeful. Because without hope, what is there? Where will this three-week trip into the Great Unknown lead us? Damned if I know.

~

My friend Tony claims he would never visit a country whose name he couldn’t spell.

My friend Joe (the guy who’d introduced me and Paul) keeps insisting we’re going to Honduras, as though all Third World Central American lands are interchangeable.

Why Guatemala? everyone wonders.

There are volcanoes in Guatemala, I answer.

There are volcanoes in Hawaii, my friend Thomas responds.

I shake my head and say, But there are also rainforests in Guatemala.

There are rainforests in plenty of other places, Thomas shrugs.

But find one singular country that has volcanoes, rainforests AND Mesoamerican ruins AND Caribbean beaches. Not to mention the elusive and resplendent quetzal, Guatemala’s glorious national bird. People don’t know what to respond then.

Five hours from New York City by air, Guatemala is also incredibly inexpensive. Our roundtrip airfare costs less than 600 dollars each. Roughly five or six of their dollars (called quetzals, not to be confused with the bird of the same name) equals one of ours. Paul estimates that 21 days in this pauper’s paradise will probably cost us less than 2,000 dollars. That wouldn’t buy us a week at a Club Med. If we even wanted to stay somewhere like that.

But the main reason I’m going to Guatemala is because Paul is going. Because I simply cannot comprehend spending three weeks without him.

Paul and I have known each other for a decade. And during that time, we not-so-secretly lusted after each other. Following the failure of my marriage and the breakup of Paul’s doomed four-year relationship, we finally consummated our long-term lust. At first, it was a booty call to get all that messy longing out of the way so Paul and I could move on with our lives. But to our mutual surprise, it turned out to be much more than a booty call.

Paul and I clicked. We connected. In a way that neither of us could have fantasized. We are better together than we are apart. And 11 months later, we’re going on a multiweek adventure together. Who would have thunk? Not us.

In my time with Paul, I find myself smiling and laughing more than I ever have before. I’ve never felt so comfortable in my own skin. I’ve never felt so content with myself. Whoever that happens to be at the moment.

But Guatemala? Really?

~

Standing in line at Lacsa’s JFK terminal, Paul and I learn the true meaning of the Spanish phrase, Más o menos. Which means more or less. Which usually means more or more. As in, more time…slower…longer.

Central Americans live by a different time clock than North Americans do. For example, our flight is supposed to leave at seven,más o menos. It turns out to be closer to nine. I have the feeling this won’t be the last time we’ll hear those three words on this trip.

Paul and I are some of the few people in the Lacsa line who don’t speak Spanish. We’re outsiders in our own country, so to speak. As luck would have it, one of our Anglo compatriots is standing behind us. He wears a backwards Yankees cap and has the sort of Queens County whine we’re trying to ditch.

Baseball Cap Guy gestures to a machine that crisscrosses security tape over luggage. What’s that for? he moans.

It stops people from going through your bags, Paul offers, uncharacteristically chatty at the ungodly hour.

Nothing’s safe down there, Baseball Cap Guy says dolefully.

‘With that kind of attitude, why the hell are you even leaving your own living room?’ I want to ask him.

But I don’t say a word.

The airplane’s first stop is Cancun. Whispering quietly, Paul and I bet that Baseball Cap Guy is headed for a fancy-pants, all-inclusive. We can’t imagine him in Guatemala. And that’s fine with us.

~

It’s almost eight when we finally check our backpacks and board the plane. The flight attendant addresses Paul in English and me in Spanish. My black hair and olive complexion are probably responsible. Lighter skinned and sandy haired, Paul is actually half Cuban and speaks pigeon Spanish. My knowledge of the language is practically nonexistent. When the people behind us complain en Español, I understand only a sprinkling of words.

There are some benefits to being in a country where they don’t speak your lingo. The beauty of it is that we can goof on people to their faces and they’ll never know, Paul philosophizes.

But they can do the same to us, I remind him.

Making fun of people behind their backs is one of Paul’s and my favorite pastimes. The pickings are so ripe here we can’t resist. First, there’s the lady with bad hair (pelo malo, Paul tells me) and Eskimo boots. And who could pass up the opportunity to comment on the senior citizen with coyotes, chili peppers and cacti decorating his shirt? Then there’s the man decked out in a hideous plaid jacket with the cold, dead gaze of an ax murderer.

Yes, the opportunities for bilingual ridicule are ripe. The game occupies our warped minds until the plane prepares for an 8:30 departure. Over 90 minutes late. Más o menos.

The aircraft rattles and rumbles as it bolts down the runway, quickly gaining speed. I dig the fingernails I don’t have into Paul’s wrist. (I chopped them off with a clipper yesterday so I’d be more streamlined and easier to maintain. Paul, on the other hand, always bites his nails to the quick.) I hate this part, I grimace through my teeth.

I love this part, Paul smiles.

It’s going to be an interesting trip.

~

Paul and I have a saying we came up with when we were in New Orleans this past May. As we stood, ankle deep in mud in the middle of a downpour during the outdoor Jazz and Heritage Festival, we’d look at each other and say, Could be worse…could be raining.

On this trip, the catch phrase will pretty much be, Could be worse…could be in Guatemala.

~

Hours behind schedule, we arrive at Guatemala City’s La Aurora International Airport. But our luggage doesn’t. Yes, Lacsa has lost our bags.

Up until now, Paul and I are proud of the fact that we shoved everything we could possibly need into one humongous backpack apiece. Only to discover that both of our backpacks are missing. Why couldn’t they have lost someone else’s TV or blender? (Tons of appliances are piled off to the side, waiting to be claimed by their owners.) Why did they have to lose all our earthly possessions?

La Aurora is the tiniest international airport either of us has ever been to. It only has two baggage carousels. One of which isn’t working. How is it possible to lose anything in an airport so small?

There’s no use in being angry or yelling at anyone. Paul and I don’t have enough command of Spanish to get pissed off without sounding like Ricky Ricardo in a forgotten I Love Lucy episode.

After filling out a lost property report, we sit down to have a drink. A Gallo (the local beer, whose name means rooster) for Paul and French wine in a tin can for me. As upsetting as being luggage-less in a foreign country is, we can’t help shaking our heads and laughing. What else can we do?

We have nothing but the clothes on our backs, my shoulder bag and Paul’s daypack. But at least we still have our passports, cash and travelers’ checks slung in the money wallets around our necks. At least I still have that emergency condom in my purse so the day (and the night) won’t be a total loss. And I have my journal, a purple-covered, eight-by-five, wire-rimmed notebook. Because I want to remember every detail about this trip, I promise myself that I’ll write in my journal daily. We’ll see.

~

Paul and I hail a cab and head toward the less-expensive hotels in Guatemala City’s Zona 1. It’s a journey of about five miles. Our chariot is an ancient, rusting Chevy. Chunks of the upholstery are eaten away and our feet almost push through holes in the floorboards which the driver tries to camouflage with filthy rubber mats. This is where old American cars go to die, I tell Paul.

The streets of the capital are cluttered, both with vehicles—cars, trucks, food carts—and people. They are young, middle-aged, ancient and everything in between. A huge street festival is just winding up. We later read in the Prensa Libre that we stumbled upon the aftermath of a parade sponsored by Disney and Coca-Cola. It featured both life-sized figures from Walt’s flicks and free soda. As if Third World children on the verge of poverty need either.

The people in the streets wear all manner of dress—from traditional Guatemalan huipils (blouses) and skirts to t-shirts embossed with slogans for American products they probably can’t afford. Some women are squeezed into Spandex while others wear 1970s thrift store rejects that were ugly then and are even uglier now. Guatemala City, I decide, is a crazy-quilt of things that don’t go together yet somehow work. Sort of.

What also strikes me is the sheer number of children. Maybe this is because the Disney cavalcade was geared toward kids. But everyone has at least one child. They are carried in arms and wrapped in bright pieces of loomed cloth. They are strapped to backs in colorful slings and shawls which I later learn are called rebozos. They are dragged by the hand or else run alongside their parents, trying desperately to keep up.

Above the swarming streets, an old brick aqueduct traces the entire length of the main road. And along the aqueduct calmly walks a soldier in his camouflage uniform, carrying an M-16 rifle. No one else seems to notice, as if this is a normal occurrence. I poke Paul and point to the armed militia man. He says, Welcome to Guatemala.

The Chevy we’re riding in comes to a dead stop. In his choppy English, our cab driver says that a merge up ahead is causing the traffic jam. Outside the car windows, vendors sell everything from candy to ice cream and roasted ears of corn on sticks, still in their husks.

Qué es eso? Paul asks the driver when we see people sipping Coke from paper straws inserted into plastic bags. What’s that?

In deft Spanglish, the driver explains that the soda has been emptied from their bottles into Baggies. In Guatemala, trash is a problem and recycling is expensive. So instead of throwing them out, glass bottles are reused. This much is clear from the scratches and nicks in the well-worn crates of beer and soda bottles stacked beside the street vendors.

Drinking soda from a plastic bag will become a common sight on this trip. As will many other things I’ve never witnessed before.

~

Traffic starts to ease. Paul tells our cabbie that the airline has lost our luggage. The man seems extremely troubled by this. More upset than he should be. He furrows his brow and offers an earnest, "Lo siento." This means I’m sorry. Later, we realize that by mistake, Paul used the word for dresses instead of the word for clothes. Maybe this explains the strange expression on the driver’s face—he was trying to picture Paul in a mumu. Not a pretty sight.

The cab drops us off outside the Hotel Centenario which is practically next door to the Palacio Nacional (National Palace). But even though we have a fax confirming our reservation, the Centenario has no accommodations for us. Frustrated, we cross the street and head for the main square, Parque Centenario. We sit on a bench to figure out our next move. A man approaches us with a shoeshine kit. But when he spots our hiking boots, he grumbles and turns away without a word.

Wooden soap boxes are set up throughout the park. From some of them, Evangelists spout in Spanish. At others, people sing. Paul and I are surrounded by a festive, hectic atmosphere, two unilingual clowns in the midst of a Latin American three-ring circus.

We decide to brave the crowds and head toward a cluster of Zona 1’s reasonable hotels. Swirling through a kaleidoscope of people, places and things, all around us vendors sell food, sneakers, t-shirts and toys. They peddle everything imaginable in the clogged, congested streets. We literally have to weave between the bodies to make any progress. There are stares because we stick out like proverbial sore thumbs in our western clothes, taller than most Guatemalans.

We pass hawkers selling cassette tapes of American songs they can’t possibly know the meanings of. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Have You Ever Seen the Rain? blares on a cheap boombox. It is bizarrely appropriate here.

On one street corner is a huge cardboard carton filled with puppies. Some nap peacefully while others try to escape. On another, there are two soldiers cradling their ever-present M-16s like mothers clasp their babies.

The Hotel Colonial is diagonally across the street from police headquarters, which looms like an incongruous castle. The Colonial’s lobby is tiled, clean and full of dark, heavy furniture.

But when Paul and I get to our room upstairs, it’s disappointing, musty and tattered. With faded blue roses on the wallpaper, Room 13 reeks strongly of disinfectant. Which is always better than smelling like cat pee. But since we’re tired, dirty and possession-less, lucky Room 13 suits us perfectly.

~

Finding a half-decent restaurant late on a Sunday afternoon in Guatemala City is nothing short of a miracle. The Colonial’s eatery isn’t open. Altuna, a grand, expansive place, smells alluringly of garlic and spices. Its aromas make our mouths water. But a waiter tells us that they’re about to close. We think. With our crappy command of Spanish, we can’t be too sure. But maybe it’s just our pathetic, they lost-our-luggage look that gives us the appearance of American hobos which makes the waiter send us packing.

There are loads of fast-food spots lining the avenida but Paul and I agree that after airplane food, we want something delicious.

PS, we don’t get it.

Soon, we’re standing in front of a restaurant we passed up in the beginning of our search. It’s a grungy vegetarian café that serves meat. Peeking inside, the peeling wallpaper is thick with grease. The cloth table coverings are badly stained. The torn menus are older than me, as Paul says. It is exactly the type of establishment guidebooks warn you against entering. The kind of place in which your mother tells you to wipe down the silverware. The sort of place that screams, Cholera! in a nagging voice. But La China is only a half-block from our hotel. And besides, we’re starving.

Inside La China, a man sleeps with his head on one of the tables. Is this our waiter? Should we wake him? A baby screams in a back room. Later, a little girl rolls around in a walker, teething on a plastic bag as her mother serves us our supper. La China is passable at best. At least we don’t get sick.

For some unexplained reason, Guatemala City has an unnatural number of Chinese restaurants. Especially for a Latin American country. As its name implies La China’s menu has an Asian flair. My steamed vegetables emote a La Choy meets Franco American brown gravy essence. Paul’s chicken is edible, albeit a bit rubbery.

~

The diesel busses tearing through Guatemala City’s streets sound like airplanes as they pass. These vehicles aren’t sleek like the ones back home. Instead, the capital is filled with a legion of old school busses, Blue Birds probably too antiquated to use in the States anymore, but they suit GC just fine. Their diminutive seats are tailor made for Guatemala’s small-statured populace.

Each bus is personalized by its driver. They have crazy names like Love Machine painted on the front in primary colors. Trinkets—beaded necklaces, rosaries and small dolls—hang from their rearview mirrors. The Blue Birds never come to a full stop; they just slow down. Paul and I take note of this as we dodge between them to cross the avenue. The air is choked with fumes as a continuous line of busses rumble along the broken roads.

The streets of Guatemala City are a lot like the streets of New York City, only narrower and crumblier. They aren’t as dirty as they are back home but somehow, they’re more desperate.

In one way, the people are more intense than New Yorkers, maybe because they’re poorer. They don’t have much to lose. This is poverty and squalor on whole new level. Yet, in another way, the citizens are friendlier, more patient, more eager to help, to understand. More so than New Yorkers.

~

Even with our limited language skills, Paul and I manage to find toothbrushes in an open-air pharmacy, and in our choice of designer colors. Plus, some contact lens solution for me. But oddly enough, they don’t sell plastic contact lens holders. We’ll improvise, I tell Paul hopefully.

Our next stumbling block is trying to explain to the man at the Hotel Colonial’s front desk that we need two small drinking glasses to store my contact lenses. Except Paul doesn’t know the word for contact lenses in Spanish. Instead, he uses ojos, which means eyes.

The desk clerk grudgingly hands us a pair of shot glasses from the bar, studying me intently. I swear he thinks Paul has just told him that I have a glass eye. The man examines my face, trying to decipher which eye is real and which is fake. When I wink at him, he turns away.

Back upstairs, the closer I inspect our room, the more I realize how threadbare it is. Don’t look too hard, Paul suggests. It is sage advice.

The Colonial’s accommodations seemed adequate at first, when our bellies were empty and our bodies were travel-weary, before we got our second wind. But upon closer scrutiny, there’s a cavern in the center of one bed’s mattress. It’s all fucked out, Paul tells me. The room’s other bed is solid but it’s only a single.

Wood accents decorate the length of the wall, adding a sophisticated touch. In Guatemala, mahogany and teak are as plentiful as pine is back home. The rainforests are full of these trees. Or at least they were at one time. Soon, I suppose I’ll get used to seeing these fine woods in the shabbiest of Guatemala’s hotels. But at this point, in our journey, they appear luxurious.

~

Paul and I lay side by side on the chintz bedspread, reading. I, for some reason, decided to bring the hefty The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as my literary companion on this trip. I’d always meant to read it, especially because of Hemingway’s comment that all great books can be traced to Huck.

My travel partner has taken a thin but emotionally-weighty to me called Ever After. Paul keeps reading me excerpts. How I love when he does this! The gentle timbre of his voice in the night air of a peculiar, exotic land soothes me as Paul murmurs softly, so as not to wake our neighbors on the other side of the Colonial’s paper-thin walls. I am like a beloved child being treated to a bedtime story—one that is cared for, catered to, delicately indulged. Or a cherished lover Paul needs to share these poignantly poetic words with. Which, I guess, I am.

But soon, both of us grow tired of reading. We seek the comfort of each other’s arms as we usually do at bedtime. We are relatively new lovers, still discovering, still exploring.

There’s a weighty double dresser in one corner of the room, across from the bed. It has a pockmarked mirror on the door. Paul and I watch our twined bodies by the glow of an amber utility light. This is a bonus, despite the huge divot in the center of the mattress.

That’s when I remember that I transferred the emergency condom I usually carry in my shoulder bag to my lost backpack. To lighten my load, so to speak. Without hesitation, I take Paul into my mouth. He doesn’t seem to mind this change of venue.

Afterwards, we try to sleep, but once again, Guatemala City proves to be like Manhattan: the city that never sleeps. Bells ring. A barrage of fireworks explode. A